CASE STUDY
Data visualisation and web site for E-Day Ltd
Idonix provides data visualisation with animated, data-driven web graphics for the E-Day 2009 Isles of Scilly campaign.
My sincerest thanks to Pete, Paul and Joe for everything you have done to help make this year's E-Day a success.
E-Day founder Dr Matt Prescott
Situation
E-Day 2009 was a co-ordinated attempt by the community living and working on the Scilly Isles to reduce their electricity use and to have the effects of their efforts measured in real-time. The campaign organisers were looking for a supplier to build a great web site for the event, and for a way to represent the energy savings achieved by a family, the school and the community on the Isles of Scilly in comparison with the baseline conditions simultaneously experienced across the UK.
Solution
Idonix constructed the E-Day site using the DotNetNuke CMS framework, and built a number of Flash graphics that allow visitors to view the different data feeds in several formats:
A traditional electricity meter ticks away showing the cumulative consumption through the day. The numbers on the meter rotate just like on the meter in your house (well, maybe a little faster!).
A rotating dial shows minute-by-minute the current demand in gigawatts, and savings against the same time yesterday. The dial's scale spins, and the two needles rotate to show the current value.
And finally this line graph summarises the demand over the current 24 hour period, again compared to the previous period. The arrow to the right shows the decrease (or increase) compared to the previous period.
All of these examples are showing live data from the National Grid.
Technology
These graphics obviously require real-time data feeds. Idonix built a SQL Server database with an associated web service to allow clients to store and retrieve the data in json format. Client software was then created to load the system with data from the following sources:
- National
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- A process on the E-Day site retrieves a real-time XML data feed from the National Grid and uploads it via the E-Day web service.
- Scilly Isles
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- Western Power (the electricity distribution company for the South West) sends real-time data to the E-Day ftp service. From there it is processed and uploaded to the database via the web service.
- School
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- A custom application runs on a PC at the school. This application gathers data from a Current Cost meter and uploads it to the E-Day web service.
- Family
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- Another Current Cost meter in the family home - our custom application connects to this meter over USB and uploads it's data to the E-Day web service.
Smart Meter Application
After evaluating a number of different products, Current Cost were chosen as the supplier of smart meters for the project. We developed a bespoke software application to transfer data from the meter to the e-day web site: a dot net windows service connects to the meter's USB port and uploads its data to the e-day web service. A windows forms client application can be used to monitor the status of the application.
